Project: Rethinking Sex Offenders

The Center’s Nora Hertel teamed up with Gilman Halsted of Wisconsin Public Radio on “Rethinking Sex Offenders,” a three-day series examining Wisconsin’s changing methods of dealing with sexually violent persons. The series reveals that officials have nearly quadrupled the number of offenders released from state custody after they were committed as sexually violent persons. It also includes a rare glimpse inside the walls of Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston.

Nora G. Hertel / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journailsm

Larry, here at Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center, left the facility this past December on supervised release. He was confined for 19 years, most of them after he completed his criminal sentence for a sexual assault. He said he considers the commitment law “double jeopardy,” as offenders face a civil trial after they complete their criminal sentences. Sand Ridge officials asked that the Center not publish the last names of the offenders to whom it granted access, due to concerns about medical privacy.

Day 2

Day 3

Day 3. Eric, 39, has been locked up for more than half his life. He finished his criminal sentence and was committed to the state as a sexually violent person in 2002. He has been confined more than twice as long as his original sentence and is now held for the future risk he poses, not for past crimes.

From the outside, Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center looks like a maximum security prison. Inside, more than 300 men live there, committed there by juries and judges throughout the state as “sexually violent persons.” The challenge, for staff, is to treat and reintegrate them into communities.

Wisconsin officials have nearly quadrupled the number of offenders released from state custody after they were committed as sexually violent persons. The risks to residents are reasonable, officials say, because the state’s treatment programs are working and new data suggest these offenders are less likely to reoffend than previously thought.